The UK’s Chancellor, George Osborne, is coming under increasing pressure not to reduce budget for green initiatives ahead of next week’s spending review.
The TUC, Friends of the Earth and the Aldersgate Group have written to the Chancellor expressing their concerns and will put the issues to the Energy and Climate Secretary Chris Huhne when he addresses a TUC climate change conference today.
The issues of most cause for concern, say the organisations, are potential cuts to the renewable heat incentive (RHI) and feed-in tariff (FIT), which would stall investment, and the possible cancellation of a £60 million investment in Teeside and Humberside to support the emerging wind turbine industry.
The organisations are also concerned that the Government may withdraw investment from carbon capture and storage projects – leaving the industry to pick up the cost.
“Cutting green funding in the spending review would not just risk economic recovery, it would also mean many lost opportunities to create green jobs and develop technologies that could reduce our carbon emissions and save businesses and taxpayers billions of pounds,” says TUC deputy general secretary Frances O’Grady.
“The market alone won’t deliver the low carbon changes the UK needs that’s why we must get a Green Investment Bank up and running,” he adds.
Meanwhile, Tim Yeo, the Conservative chair of Parliament’s cross-party Energy and Climate Change Committee has added his voice, reportedly saying cutting green budgets would be like “cutting the budget for Spitfires in 1939”.